


cold wind

by modal_contingency



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alpha Trevor Belmont, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Explicit Consent, Good old fashioned self-loathing, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Not So Platonic Cuddling, Omega Alucard, Omega Sypha Belnades, Pheromones, Pining, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modal_contingency/pseuds/modal_contingency
Summary: Trevor picks up Sypha, Alucard, and a new habit in the space of a few weeks, and he’s not sure which is the biggest problem.One alpha. Two omega. It really should be simple.It isn’t.





	1. Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> *Chucks this over the wall of anonymity*
> 
> (Update: minor edits)

=====

Trevor picks up Sypha, Alucard, and a new habit in the space of a few weeks, and he’s not sure which is the biggest problem.

First, Sypha. Impulsive, snarky, opinionated-- that he could handle. Whip-smart, quick on the draw, told a hell of a story. An omega too, but Trevor had never paid much attention to dynamics and even less to social norms, and the sight of an omega wreaking havoc on the battlefield didn’t throw him like society said it should. He trusted her and hadn’t yet had cause to regret it. 

Second, Alucard. Half of Trevor’s worst nightmare filled to the brim with sardonic humor and a stick up the ass to boot. Eyes like ice and the faint scent of omega drifting off of him, hard for Trevor to pick up but present nonetheless. He wore his inhuman qualities like armor and watched Trevor like a hawk-- like a threat, like a challenge, and definitely not like an omega. But, animosity aside, Alucard didn’t mince words and could crack a surprisingly good joke, and that Trevor could work with, at least.

And then third.

Like all respectable bad habits, Trevor doesn’t notice his until it sneaks up and slips like a knife between his ribs. 

Time quickly becomes a sticky thing around the three of them-- the more it passes the more gets tangled up in its wake. Two weeks of travel out of Gresit and he knows their favorite foods, the way they plan, what fascinates them-- knows that Sypha hates silence and Alucard doesn’t sleep through the night and that they’re both gigantic, unapologetic bookworms.

Trevor finds things spilling from himself as well, unbidden-- things he thought he’d never want to share. About his family, his childhood, his likes and wants and the things that make his blood boil. 

He stays quiet on the topic of his dynamic. He’d never given much thought to being an alpha beyond an abstract relief at not having to deal with the rigid set of rules thrust on omega youth. He didn’t begrudge anyone their dynamic, as much as he didn’t put any sort of stock in his own-- a roll of the dice, and in his experience there was no use trying to glean anything from a chanced thing. Convention said that omegas were tractable, gentle providers or fragile seductresses, but Trevor had seen his fair share of omega with their blood up and teeth bared, seen a few rip the throats out of persistent and unwanted suitors, so clearly convention was full of shit. Convention also said that alphas were violent and volatile and dangerous, driven near bestial at the prospect of a mate, but Trevor had always been more preoccupied with the training yard than chasing omega. 

Or alpha. 

Or anyone, really.

He takes extra care to tread carefully around Alucard and Sypha though, those first few new days--he’s familiar with the type of attention most alpha give omega and the last thing he wants to do is misstep because he’s somehow managed to trip his way into their surprisingly decent little team-up and god, he’d forgotten how nice it is to have people to talk to.

Things tumble alarmingly quickly from stilted alliance to a cautious rapport to an easy intimacy. The arguments over plans become briefer. The fights with Dracula’s horde go more smoothly. And, somewhere around the third week, the conversation gets _ good_.

“Why am I even telling you this?” Trevor laughs one night around the fire, half-serious, having just spilled out a lightly embellished story from his misspent youth involving communion wine, his father’s best hunting hounds, a fresh roast hog, and a spectacularly ruined Christmas ball.

“Alcohol, Belmont. Lots of alcohol.” Sypha supplies, deadpan, and takes another taste of her drink. She’s flushed, cheeks rosy in the cold and from the drink.

Alucard sighs deeply and takes a delicate sip from his flask. Trevor and Sypha have a tacit agreement not to ask about the contents, and Alucard pointedly does not offer to clarify or to share. “Peril bonds people quickly, Belmont. Save someone's life enough, share a task, and you're bound to end up feeling something for them.”

Sypha snorts and bats her eyes, flushed with wine. “Do you feel something for me, Alucard?”

Alucard rolls his eyes, but his mouth curves into a smile. “I feel _ something _ for you both: affection, annoyance-- there's an _ incredibly _fine line.”

Trevor stretches himself out over his spread cloak, lax and head buzzy. “Oh come off it, you like us.”

“I like exactly one of you at a given time,” Alucard says delicately, and Sypha shoves his shoulder hard, and that's that.

Trevor can't help it. He likes them. Likes to be around them. Likes to wake up to their joking and likes to fight alongside them and likes to argue with them and likes to waste hours talking with them and likes, and likes, and _ likes _ until being with them becomes a habit, and a dangerously comfortable one at that. 

God knows he’s had enough of those for a lifetime.

He’d picked up alcoholism and a nasty case of not giving a fuck traipsing around the countryside for years and then picked up Sypha and Alucard and their easy companionship just as easily. Too easily. 

He wonders how long it will take for the second to wreck him just as thoroughly as the first. Wonders if he’s traded out one vice for another.

Wonders, too, if this will become just another thing for him to fuck up.

=====

“So, which one’s yours?”

Trevor pauses in counting out the coins for supplies for long enough to glare irritably at the merchant. “What?”

The man looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head and points over his shoulder. Behind him, Sypha is engaged in an animated conversation with a vendor selling the rare pressed herbs she claims to need for her spell research, and Alucard is smirking fondly at the exchange, flipping a gold coin around in his fingers. “The omega you wandered into town with.” 

“Neither,” Trevor says honestly, trying to keep his tone neutral. It’s not an unexpected question but it’s still rude. It’s highly unfortunate that they desperately need supplies before heading back into the countryside because teaching the merchant a lesson in manners would be a surefire way to lift Trevor’s mood.

The merchant raises his eyebrows. “Really? Don’t see too many unattached omega around these parts, much less with an alpha in tow.” He watches the merchant take a deep breath as a dreamy expression spreads across his face. “Especially smelling like that.” 

They don’t smell like anything in particular to Trevor, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d never been good at getting anything but broad strokes of scent off of anyone, with the notable exception of a few people he had been close to-- a lifetime ago, an age ago, when he was younger and friendlier and sober and--

Well. Nevermind that. 

Alucard and Sypha smell faintly like omega and mostly like travel to him. Musky. A bit sweet.

The merchant forges on blithely. “Unless that’s your plan, alpha. Clever.” And then he winks slyly at Trevor like they’re in on some joke, and Trevor fucking knows that he’s going to hate the next thing that comes out of the man’s mouth. “Wait till one’s in heat, and-- well, the blonde smells like he’s a few days away from begging for an alpha, eh?”

Trevor slams the remaining coins down onto the table with a growl. “Listen. They’re not mine, they’re not anyone’s, and if you want to keep your tongue in your thick skull I’d advise against saying anything _stupid_ in their earshot.” He starts to shove the supplies into his pack, not caring that some of the dried grains spill onto the ground.

The merchant’s eyes widen, and Trevor can almost catch a whiff of fear coming off him. Almost. He’s had a shit sense of smell his whole life, and he’d learned early on that it was easier to use senses other than his nose to puzzle out the subtleties of dynamics that came so easily others. So he checks the merchant’s body language. Rounded shoulders. Head tilted to the side to bare the throat. Open palms. An appropriate level of contrition from an uppity alpha, which is good because Trevor isn't sure he can muster up a proper front of alpha bravado right then. 

“Of course, sir, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Trevor rolls his eyes and hefts the pack over his shoulder. “Sure, idiot.”

Fucking bigots.

=====

Sypha fights like a whirlwind from the first night they meet onward, predictable as the break of the morning, and it settles Trevor in a way that he didn’t think anything could anymore, predictable competence a comfort after so many years on his own.

She’s pressed up against his back now, a tight line of muscle, having just had the unfortunate awakening of an ambush on the far edge of night. It’s just the two of them-- Alucard splintered off a few days past chasing reports of a pack of werewolves terrorizing a village to the west, leaving Sypha and Trevor to track down leads on the latest location of Dracula’s castle until his return.

An early morning ambush had definitely not been part of the plan.

Sypha twirls a hand in the air and shoves forward, pushing a wall of ice to crack into one of the last of the demons, freezing it in place in the space of a breath; she snaps, it fractures, and the demon splinters into two before Trevor can even swing his sword.

“Jesus, Speaker, leave some for me,” he calls over his shoulder, shocking himself by wanting to laugh. There’s a light something buzzing through the muscles under his skin and the cold wind is whipping his hair in his face and his palm is smarting from a bad catch of his whip and he can barely see through the dense morning fog but he’s having _ fun_, for some godforsaken reason.

He swings the whip in a curve and she ducks neatly, moving like they’ve fought side by side for years instead of weeks, and the tip catches and ignites the last demon mid-landing and then it’s over.

He wipes the worst of the muck off of his hands and surveys the damage. The camp is a wreck and the snow is melting on their scattered supplies but the buzz under his skin hasn't gone away and is singing through to his bones. He feels odd; feels _good_. Safe, and content, but for the faint warning sense that flickers to life in the back of his mind-- not warning danger, not indicating a threat-- something different. _Important_, it signals softly, and he runs the back of his hand over his forehead, checking for a fever.

“Was that enough of a wakeup for you, Belmont?” Sypha is looking at him, a triumphant smirk spreading across her face as she tucks her escaped curls behind her ear, and he meets her eyes dead-on and _ oh-- _it all slides home.

It’s like a string has been plucked somewhere under his ribs, warm and rich and vibrating through him. His head turns towards her like leaves to the sun, nose catching on the rich scent practically vibrating off of her, heady as hell. 

He doesn’t know how he missed it before. The crackle in the air like the wind before a storm, and crushed spring berries, and the tea he once bought off a trader when he was young, and he’s never smelled anything like it. 

_ Fuck_.

“Belmont?” Her expression flicks from triumphant to concerned. “Everything alright?”

“Fine,” he grits out, throat dry, and waves her off as he pretends to catch his breath and desperately tries to ignore the part of him that’s crawled the surface. A yearning, and it's as desperate and insistent as anything he’s ever felt. “Just hate to fight on an empty stomach.”

_ Instinct is a bitch_, his brother used to say from the sidelines of their parents’ balls, nursing his fourth or fifth glass of wine and watching alpha and omega mingle and move and pair off like clockwork, swirling around and around in something much more complicated than a simple dance, caught up in instincts older than civilization, and Trevor had never really understood before.

Maybe he just hadn’t paid enough attention, maybe he had never given anyone enough of a chance, maybe he had just never worked that way at all, but scent had never made him react anything like this before.

A pull he can’t ignore, even as the moment passes and he’s cleaning up the ruins of their campsite, packing up supplies and listening to Sypha bitch about bloodstains on her robes. Her scent persists, slinking around his senses, laying low in the background until he tugs it forward.

It hits like the first time, everytime.

=====

Alucard catches Trevor off guard but, after Sypha, he probably shouldn’t. 

Trevor gets better at fighting his instincts by the time it takes for the two of them to regroup with Alucard. He drives the cart over muddy dirt roads and tends the campfire and haggles for supplies and argues with Sypha about directions and Alucard about strategy and slowly, surely, they get the hell on with tracking down Dracula and his army.

And he drinks, of course-- his favorite crutch, now with the added bonus of dulling the senses that want him tuned to Sypha’s every move.

He can’t tamp it down, though-- not entirely. It feels like there is a part of him linked to a part of her-- fundamentally, intrinsically-- and it beats like a drum in his heart.

It doesn’t take him long to slip up, all things considered.

He’s been off ever since what he’s been thinking of as The Incident and he’s guiltily grateful that Sypha begged off the excursion for fresh supplies, leaving himself and Alucard to make their way to a nearby walled town, still mercifully untouched by Dracula’s army. 

The marketplace is slowly winding down, stalls emptier than they would have been at the peak of the day but not yet cleared out for the night. There are a few groups of people around, drifting in and out of the shops and taverns that line the square, and Trevor fights down the unexplained snarl that wants to twist his mouth. He’s been in a mood all day, keyed up. There’s a new scent on the air in town and he can’t pin the source and he _ wants _ to: fresh green sap and upturned earth and copper ore, and fuck, someone in town smells _ good_.

That should have been his first sign.

They are able to scrounge up just enough supplies to last for a few weeks if they eat sparingly and hunt more often than not, and Alucard stops him from spending the rest of their coin on booze with nothing more than a carefully raised eyebrow and a scathing look.

“Come on, vampire, just one bottle won’t hurt--”

“I’m starting to think you’re going to drink yourself into an early grave before we even get within throwing distance of my father.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad way to go to me.” Trevor scuffs his boots on the ground, childish, because he knows it bothers Alucard. “Would be quieter, for one. Wouldn’t have to deal with your constant bitching and hair flips--”

A door slams open as a loud group of people push their way out of a tavern, some swaying precariously. Trevor doesn’t need to have the keenest sense of smell to catch the reek of alpha. He wrinkles his nose and grits his teeth and has to stop himself from grabbing Alucard’s sleeve to pull him away from the drunken crowd. That would definitely not end well.

Someone laughs loudly and wolf whistles as Alucard and Trevor sweep past the group, and if Trevor was watching less intently he would have missed the clench of Alucard’s teeth, the edge of fang.

“Hey blondie, ditch that bastard and come with us.”

“Don’t ignore us, beautiful-- we’d show you a good time.”

Trevor doesn’t see one of the alpha grab for Alucard, not exactly, but he can _ feel _Alucard tense beside him and something roils under Trevor’s skin and snaps into place.

Alucard could rip the man’s throat out within the space of a breath, could snap all his bones with the slightest pressure, could change into fog and let him choke but Trevor finds himself shoving between the two of them anyway. His blood is thick and roaring in his veins and the earthy, coppery scent he couldn’t quite place earlier is suddenly overwhelming and he’s caught in another startling moment of clarity-- the scent is Alucard, of course it’s Alucard, and he’s stupid to have not placed it before--and he bares his teeth and shoves the man, hard. He’s running hot on instinct. Wild.

“Fuck. Off.” His voice sounds foreign; a rasp of sound that rumbles in his throat and across his skin. A snarl, and he’s never heard anything like it; he can hear Alucard inhale sharply behind him, and the man growls out his own challenge. 

So, in a classic show of the Belmont's historic lack of impulse control, Trevor balls up his fist and lets it connect solidly with the man’s face.

It’s a terrible punch but Trevor has never felt so good hitting anything in his life, even as he feels his fist throbbing from the man’s thick skull, from the bad angle, through the fog of adrenaline clouding his head.

The man is floundering on the ground staring up at him, fear peeling off of him, stinking up the air, and an unfamiliar, dark part of Trevor curls awake at the sight. 

_ Good_, it sighs. _ Protect_.

Alucard’s grip is like a vice on his arm as he hauls Trevor down a side alley, away from all the eyes he can feel trained on them. Sharpened nails sink into Trevor’s skin through his shirt and the fog gathered in his head clears instantly, a jolt of realization like the shock of cold water as the whole scene crashes through Trevor beat by beat, viewed through an unclouded lens, and _ oh_. Oh, _ shit_.

Alucard releases his arm in favor of twisting a hand tight in his collar, shoving him up hard against the stone wall of the alley, eyes on fire, scent flaring up like caught kindling. “I don’t need your posturing, alpha, nor do I appreciate it.”

“Sorry--” Trevor chokes, the shame sitting low and hard in his stomach; _ sorry for being an asshole, sorry for the loss of control, sorry I wasn’t better than I was built. _ “--I’ve never-- I swear I didn’t mean to. It just. Happened.”

For an instant, Alucard’s eyes flick open in surprise, but before Trevor can fully work through the implications of that Alucard releases him. 

Trevor lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, stone rough at his back.

Was this what it was like for other alphas? Fighting back a wave of instinct, keeping the urge to _ possess _ and _ covet _ and _ keep _in check? It wasn’t quite the same as what happened with Sypha; related, clearly, but not identical. Two different cards in a matching set. His head is clear now but his blood is still burning under his skin, nose full of the off-scent of Alucard’s distress; he feels like he could crack stone and bend metal and he’s hyper-aware of Alucard’s presence, wrapped around him like a snare. Held, but not necessarily safe. 

A fist around his heart.

Alucard is blocking his way, inhumanly still, trapping Trevor between the wall and his checked, unblinking glare, and Trevor wonders suddenly, viscerally, if this is what Alucard is like when he fucks. Hot eyes and coiled tension and damp earth scent rolling off him in waves, burning through Trevor like a coal fire and leaving him laid bare in its wake. 

He wonders if he would want to fuck Alucard, or if Alucard would want to fuck him, and he’s never thought about anyone like that with any kind of intensity. With any kind of heat.

“Be sure it doesn’t happen again, Belmont.”

Alucard moves away finally, _ finally-- _and when he disappears around the corner Trevor snakes to his knees.

_ Fuck._ More trouble.

=====

They make it to the ruined grounds of the Belmont estate in a few day's time, and Trevor is fine.

Really.

He’s been tiptoeing around Alucard after the incident in the town, around Sypha after the ambush, careful in an unfamiliar way. He notes how some thoughts skip all proper brain function and settle straight into raw instinct; to pursue, to protect, to _ keep _. How easy it is to let himself drift in the pull of what can only be attraction. To Alucard, to Sypha.

Them, together-- with him.

Well, perhaps it’s a bit more complicated than simple attraction. A bad crush, coupled with a nasty case of biological fuckery, and of course it all hits him for the first time as the world crashes down around them.

Now that it’s awoken in him their scents sit like smoke in his lungs and Trevor has to work not to gasp with every breath when he’s near sometimes, defenses pared down to near nothing in their wake and oh--

Oh.

Logically, it’s probably a reaction to being on his own for so long; absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the old saying goes. Spend enough time alone and anyone-- omega, alpha, anyone in between-- would smell like heaven, especially when traveling in close quarters. Especially traveling with people he cares about. 

Friends.

He ignores the fact that the people in the towns they pass still smell mild in comparison. 

He ignores the fact that his eyelids want to slide shut in the best type of way at the end of a night spent cooped up in the covered cart with them to shelter from the rain. 

He especially ignores that he’s never smelled anything so strongly off of anyone before, let alone two; that the alpha buried in his bones never wanted anyone in the way he wants them. Like all the stories he used to sneak from his mother’s bookshelves, like what all his friends used to obsess about-- like he was pre-patterned to wake to their scent, bask in their glow. 

Like it’s not his choice. 

He wants to bury his head in Sypha’s neck and run his teeth down the curve of Alucard’s throat, and it’s not like he’s never caught a scent before but it’s never been a physical, visceral tug like this. 

Like he wants to open himself up just to get them closer, and oh, it could get so dangerous so quickly.

A cold shock travels down his spine at that realization. _ Shit_.

He can’t let this get dangerous, for any of them. They have a mission and a plan and hordes of enemies on all sides and certainly not enough time to let an unwanted side-effect of Trevor's alpha dynamic drive them all to distraction.

They can’t fail to stop Dracula, to stop his hellish army-- they _ can’t fail_, and Trevor won't allow himself to fuck it up.

Not again, not like always.

The last thing Sypha and Alucard need is for Trevor to distract them with a stupid thing like infatuation-- they’re not his for the taking just because he’s an alpha and they’re omega and they travel with him and sleep next to him and laugh with him and tease him and smell like heaven cracked open for him.

It’s an easy enough decision to make when he really thinks about it. Until their mission is complete, until Dracula is dead, until there is some sort of stability, Alucard and Sypha are allies. Nothing more.

Completely off-limits. For everyone’s good.

So, he comes up with a new plan, which is really just the old plan with a hell of a lot more intention on his part. Make nice with Sypha and Alucard, but not too nice. Research vampiric weaknesses. Track down the castle, and kill the army of demons. Ignore the simmer of biological want trapped under his skin, filling up his lungs. Kill that son of a bitch Dracula, and save Wallachia.

Easy.

He’s already strung thin and tight as a bowstring when they reach the ruins of what used to be his ancestral home. Alucard and Sypha loudly trade theories on how to open the sealed archives as they make camp on the outskirts of the estate, and Trevor can feel their eyes on him as he pulls out one of the bottles he’d been hoarding for a special occasion. 

No better time than on a grave waiting for the end of the world.

The fire is good. Smoke is good. He sits downwind from it and lets it sting his eyes and fill his nose with the acrid scent of burning. The trees are young, here, sprouted up on the edges of the scorched earth, and he’s never been more grateful the wood for their fire was part green. 

The smoke hides the scent in the air, both theirs and his own, which he’s sure reeks with discontent and sadness and anger and--

Well.

The smoke and darkness hide his face, too, and the way he knows it must look.

His palms start to smart and he realizes that he’s dug his nails in. Bad habit. He takes a breath, coughs, and takes another sip. Tries to savor it, set a pace, but the lull in his head just leaves him wanting more. Like always.

Sypha has her head in Alucard’s lap, holding a flame on the tip of her finger for light as she reads through one of the books from Alucard’s crypt. Alucard runs his finger down the text, speaking softly over her shoulder.

They ask him questions, sometimes-- a blatant attempt to draw him out of his sulk, and he wishes he could muster up any sort of serviceable front in response. Sarcasm-- his best-liked and best-used defense-- falls flat on his tongue. Alucard asks him about monsters he’s fought and Sypha about the forest he grew up getting lost in, and he can’t manage anything more than stilted answers. 

It feels different than the nights they shared early on. Stilted, a bit colder, a touch lonelier. _ It’s for the best_, he tries to convince himself as he tugs his cloak tighter around himself, takes another drink. They have a goal. They have a plan. He refuses to drag them down into the growing well of his own darkness, into the petty distractions of his dynamic. His new plan is going off without a hitch, and he should be happy. 

It feels wrong nonetheless. A bone set not quite right.

Alucard and Sypha stop trying to talk to him as the night wears on, caught up in their own little bubble of conversation, and Trevor drinks more.

Mourns, a little.

And watches them, and watches them, and drifts, and sleeps.


	2. Day

When he wakes, he’s warm.

His eyes blink in the dim as he registers heat and a dense, scratchy fabric on his face and  _ scent _ , god-- hot and weighty in his lungs. Earth. Copper. 

Alucard. 

He rolls over under the cloth and drags it up to his face before he can think about it, trying to get more, closer, and even the slightest movement seems an extreme inconvenience. He feels like a toy puppet with the strings cut-- lax, pliable. 

The dark gives way to light when he finally shifts the heavy wool of Alucard’s coat off of his face. It’s morning, apparently, and judging from the position of the sun, it's a late one. He drags the hair out of his eyes, sitting up and clutching the coat around himself instinctively. 

The morning air is crisp on his face, and Trevor shivers.

“Belmont--” Alucard and Sypha have what seems to be every single book in their joint possession spread out over the ruins where they made their camp. The pages flutter in the wind, held open with stones. “You were shivering.” There’s no inflection in Alucard’s voice, no judgment. 

“It’s cold,” Trevor manages, voice unexpectedly ragged.

“It looked more like nightmares,” Sypha says softly, leaning on Alucard’s leg where he sits, casually intimate in the way that omega sometimes get with one another. 

No. The way friends get with each other, and that stings more. 

They must have been reading together again.

“You were calling out,” Sypha says, still sounding concerned. “Names.”

“Yeah,” Trevor says, and it takes more effort than he bargained for to pull the coat off of himself. To hold it out towards Alucard. If he could only fold down into the fabric again and breathe he’s sure he’d sleep soundly for a thousand years. 

Alucard tilts his head to the side and regards him, and Trevor knows by now that’s his way of revealing that he’s mulling something over. A hint that whatever he’s going to say or do isn’t an easy choice for him.

“Keep it, Belmont. It would have to get much colder than this for me to feel it.”

Trevor blinks. That’s unexpected. But then again, the whole circumstance is unexpected.

Alucard’s stare is a challenge and Sypha rolls her eyes at them both and Trevor makes sure to tuck the coat away in his pack when they move camp.

=====

The next day, Sypha cracks open the archives and that’s ten times worse, somehow.

Away from the ruins, away from the ash-- it’s like the vault has been crystallized. Pinned to a board like a dead thing and trapped between glass.

He trails behind Sypha as she winds down the stairs and grips the hilt of his sword to stop his shaking hands and fights down the instinct to shred the portraits on the wall for the way they stare mildly at Trevor. They all have his eyes.

He excuses himself to gather firewood while Alucard and Sypha begin their investigation of the dusty bookshelves and cases.

When he opens the door to the archives again, arms laden with wood and focus fixed pointedly on anything but the pictures on the walls, it floods him.

The air is like a physical presence all around him, heavy like furs and catching in his lungs, smelling of goldenrod stalks and the ground after the rain and, when Trevor takes a deep breath in, like berries and early morning dew and like--

Them. 

Like the both of them, and it hits him that they’ve probably slept together if they’re smelling like that-- especially smelling like that to an alpha-- and his breath catches in his throat at the realization. 

_ They work well together _ is his first absent, coherent thought-- smart, sensible, talented,  _ beautiful--  _ everything Trevor isn’t, really. It didn’t much matter that they were both omega when they worked together like  _ that _ . And oh--

Oh.

Several thoughts slot into place all at once. Why Sypha stares at him when she thinks he isn't looking, like she’s transfixed. Why Alucard would even think about unbending his pride enough to give Trevor his stupid coat. Why they let him stick around at all because he's handy with a whip and saddled with a family name that used to mean something but really, what’s that when compared to  _ magic _ ?

They’re sleeping together and they’re happy and Trevor is intruding in the worst kind of way; his presence playing on their instincts and demanding they play the good omegas to his alpha without so much as his say so. 

Comforting him. Providing for him. Making nice. Some residual trick of biology that reads  _ relationship  _ and  _ mate  _ and interprets it as needing an alpha, any alpha-- and lo, there Trevor is.

A wave of nausea sweeps his body.

He should have realized what was happening sooner-- should have left after the first time Sypha saved his life with a smile and Alucard laughed at one of his terrible jokes. 

He reaches the bottom of the stairs in a daze and tosses the firewood into a heap on the floor. It clatters loudly.

Sypha pokes her head around the corner of a bookshelf. “Alright, Trevor?” There must be an expression on his face that he can’t fight down in time because she raises one eyebrow and steps around the corner. “--Not alright, then.” 

“I’m fine,” he lies, even though he must stink of how  _ not fine _ he is.

She takes a step towards him and pauses, considers him. The corner of her mouth curves into a soft smile. “Right, then. Help me with some books?”

He knows he should say no. “Yeah,” he says instead, and follows her.

=====

Trevor has to face them together eventually.

Night falls fast-- too fast-- and it’s unfortunate that it wouldn’t go unnoticed if he slipped off to a dark corner of the archives to sulk and sleep in peace.

Plus, he’s hungry.

Alucard claims to like cooking so he throws provisions into something resembling a meal before spreading himself against a bookshelf near Sypha in a way that looks like it would be uncomfortable for any sort of normal human. He fishes out a small book from his coat. 

Trevor expects Sypha to follow suit, to curl up with him; they both seem to cram every last second of downtime with reading for reasons that defy Trevor’s concept of relaxation, and this of all places is fit for studying. 

But Sypha’s eyes are deep blue points across the fire from him as she leans back against the pile of their packs, fixed and undercut with determination.

“You don’t have to sit all the way over there, Trevor-- there’s plenty of room right here. Come sit.” It’s an order with the flavor of a request-- her specialty-- and it would be so easy for him to follow it. To curl up next to Sypha, breathe her in, pretend that the fit of them together would fix all the things churning inside him. Soothe the ache that’s settled deep in the places where his bones meet, where his nerves run too close. 

He knows it would work.

“No thanks,” he says instead, brittle and too sharp, because the offer is a thing of glass too close to his heart and he knows that he’ll manage to get cut, somehow. 

“You smell like discontentment, alpha,” Alucard says over the top of his book, raising an eyebrow. “And it’s distracting. She’ll keep offering until you take her up on it.”

Sypha glares over her shoulder and tsks. “Be nice, Alucard.” She looks at Trevor. “But yes, I will keep asking until you come over.” She frowns suddenly, and it tugs at Trevor’s gut. “That is, if you want. You don’t have to.” 

He’s too tired for this. Too chilled and too spent and too damn  _ tired  _ for this right now. The chill of the night is drawing up close around him, getting under his skin, and the day has made him altogether too nervy to puzzle out which option would fuck him over more in the end: the compliance or the rejection. 

So he lets himself give in. Just this once. 

He runs a hand through his hair and gets to his feet. “What the hell-- why not.”

Sypha’s smile is radiant. 

She shifts to make room for him, tugging him down by the arm when he hesitates to sit. It’s not uncomfortable, leaned up against the soft support of the packs as Sypha tucks herself neatly underneath his arm, one arm looped around his back and the other curled across her stomach. Her head falls to rest on his shoulder. It’s chaste, except for the way it fills Trevor’s ribs up like an overfilled cup. He can feel her breathe there, deeply, and his chill dulls and fades as heat suffuses through him at the contact, at their closeness. 

It’s far, far more comfortable than he could have imagined.

They sit, wrapped in each other, the silence punctuated by the low crackle of the fire and the soft drag of Alucard turning the pages of his book, and eventually, Trevor has to ask. “Why?”

Sypha sighs, and he can feel it in his chest. “Because I wanted to offer, Belmont, and because it’s nice.” 

It is nice; just might be the nicest thing Trevor has ever felt. Like all his bones are putty, head wrapped up in cotton.

“Reasons don’t have to be complicated, Trevor. Sometimes the best things are the simplest ones.” Sypha sounds like he feels-- drowsy, content-- and she curls further into him and he lets her-- thighs touching, head resting on his chest, now, as her arm finds its way across his stomach. The position nudges his head back just enough to bare his throat and she sighs. His collar must have jostled out of place somewhere in the middle of their slow movements and her breath tickles his collarbone. She could scent him like this if she really wanted, tilt her head up and breathe him in, and the thought sends a slow, easy thrill through him. 

He’s aware-- dimly, distantly-- that he probably should have protested the entire situation more but he can’t for the life of him recall why.

Sleep looms and all he can smell is her and that’s more than enough.

=====

Three days of lurking around the archives feels dangerous, somehow.

Not much to do except research, search through the Belmont family’s centuries-old junk pile, and dwell on his past, and Trevor’s never had much of a head for books. 

He digs through the deepest piles in the darkest corners while Sypha and Alucard loudly argue theory and finds the Morningstar on the second day. He hefts it up from the ruins of the buried chest and twirls it around before he can think it through. Working on instinct. He catches it by the chain after a few slow revolutions, neat, and waits for the surge of ache to flood his memories.

The memory of his father coaching him through the careful steps of the dance it took to wield it. His mother schooling him on the history of his house, his weapons, the trappings of his name.

He can feel the telltale prick in his eyes, but instead of the memory washing out to clawing emptiness it just-- settles in his chest. Heavy still, but mellowed by time, and god, it’s always a shock when a memory doesn’t sting.

He tucks the whip onto his belt, and that’s that.

The days drag, and Trevor notices the change in the air before Sypha or Alucard seem to. 

The archives were never airy but they seem claustrophobic now, and it’s hard for Trevor to breathe evenly, sometimes. Air thick, clogging up his lungs. His skin feels hot, somehow, and he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he needs to be doing. 

Trevor doesn’t know if it’s him that keeps moving closer to Sypha or if she’s drifting her way to him as the hours pass. Alucard’s not immune to their odd dance either, and Trevor almost runs him down every time he rounds a corner, having abandoned books entirely and settled on stalking around the archives like a man possessed. 

Tight orbits of their wandering getting tighter, and closer, and Sypha falls asleep on Trevor again on the eve of the sixth night in the archives, Alucard splayed out on the ground next to them, almost touching. 

Trevor’s trying to figure out how to turn the page of his book without jostling Sypha when Alucard’s voice drifts from his side. 

“You’re not what I expected.” 

Trevor tenses instinctually. He’d assumed Alucard asleep. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Brash, bombastic, territorial.”

“I’ve been called all those things.” He manages to lay the book on the ground and thumb the page over, distracted. “And much worse.” 

Alucard rolls over and sits up like liquid. His eyes light up gold in the firelight. “For someone raised in a noble house, you’re surprisingly level-headed.”

“Meaning?”

Alucard starts to say something and pauses, and that’s surprising enough that Trevor looks up from his book. “You’re not what I’ve come to expect from alphas, especially ones with any sort of weight behind their names.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not what I’ve come to expect from vampires. Or Speakers,” Trevor adds, and fingers at the edge of the page as Alucard chuckles. Trevor takes a deep breath, lets himself say it. “I was always bad at this...alpha shit. All alpha shit, actually.” 

Understatement of the year. 

He half expects Alucard to laugh at him, the words sitting in the air between them, a neat summary of the crux of Trevor’s faults.

But Alucard just looks at him steadily. “That’s not a bad thing, in my experience.”

Sypha’s warmth is a solid presence at Trevor’s side and Alucard is looking at him like there's nothing broken in him, and the whole admission doesn’t sting as much as it usually does. 

So Trevor dips his head and runs a hand through his hair, lets himself smirk a bit. “And your experience is very worldly, I’m sure.”

“Very,” says Alucard, and the edge of his smile shows the point of a fang. He settles down next to Trevor and Sypha, closer than before.

Trevor doesn’t remember falling asleep but he must at some point because the next thing he knows a cry is pulling him up from the depths, nerves lighting up as he inhales sharply and takes in a deep breath of nothing but Sypha, Sypha, Sypha. 

She’s standing bolt upright and Alucard has a hand on her shoulder and another on her forehead. She’s flushed, he can tell, and trembling, and he scrambles to find his feet, instinct blazing for him to do something, anything--

“What’s-- Are you okay?”

Two sets of eyes fix him to the spot, one blue and one gold, and Trevor’s awake enough to place the smell now. The scent coming off of Sypha mostly, but Alucard as well. Saccharine.

“It’s my heat,” Sypha bites, annoyance sharpening the words, and Trevor freezes.

He’d been around omegas going into heat before, catching the edge of a sweet scent on his nose on their most intense days, but it was nothing like this. 

Heavy air, and an itch under his skin, and the past few days suddenly make a whole hell of a lot more sense in context. 

He wants to bar the door and sink to his knees and tip up his throat and let them do whatever they want to him. Push him down. Mark him up. Take what they need. What he wants. 

He takes in a shuddering breath, eyes flickering closed, and no. He has to think clearly. Sypha and Alucard are already sleeping together. Might even be mated, for all he knew, even though he'd never seen a mark. They would definitely be able to take care of each other in the fever of their heats, and he’s an unwelcome third party, an intrusive element, and he should be...removed.

“Trevor,” Sypha says-- pants, really-- and he opens his eyes again and god, she smells divine for someone who looks so concerned. “You--”

“Don't worry, I'm leaving.” Trevor says it quickly, loudly, before he can even think about saying anything different. Fuck the sharp tug of his blood; he could do this. 

A funny little flicker passes over her face. “No, I didn't mean--”

“Don’t worry, I’m fucking off--” The air crackles around them, and he knows she’s distressed, and that Alucard beside her is mirroring her distress with his own. It feels like there’s gravel in his lungs and he  _ hates  _ it and he needs to get the fuck out before they do something they’ll all regret when the heat fades.

“Belmont.” Alucard’s never been so pretty-- with his throat flushed all the way down, eyes glassy, he almost looks human.

“Look.” Trevor forces his voice firm, eyes darting between the two of them. “I’m going to the top of the stairs, outside the door. You need anything, you call me. I’ll be up there until-- well.” His throat is dry. He clears it. “Don’t-- don’t worry.”

Sypha looks at him, frowning. “Trevor…” And then she stops herself and turns to Alucard.

“I’m not worried, Belmont.” Alucard’s voice is steady even as his eyes flicker shut, jaw taut. “Go, if you’re going.”

And Trevor flees.

The door at the top of the stair clicks shut with finality, loud in the silence of the night dropping over the cracked tomb, open to the sky above him. 

He drops his pack and makes a small fire as the moonlight starts to peek through, mostly for something to do. He’s gotten so used to Sypha lighting their fires that he knocks the edge of his sword too hard into his flint, shattering off a piece into the clumsily stacked wood. Warmth bathes the old stone, but it’s still cold, and it’s far too quiet.

Trevor drags the edges of his cloak up around him and leans back against the door. Sypha’s scent still clings to the fabric from the nights she’d fallen asleep on him. 

He wishes he’d had the foresight to grab a few books. Wishes he’d grabbed something more than just his cloak to cut the chill. Tries damn hard to not think about what Alucard and Sypha are doing. Christ.

A shiver runs through his body, half the cold and half something else entirely, and a part of him that he can’t quite pin aches like a wound, and in a sudden moment of clarity Trevor scrambles for his pack. He yanks it open roughly and drags out the heavy velvet of Alucard’s coat. Wraps it around his hands, presses it to his face. Earth. Ozone.

He breathes, and breathes, and it’s a losing battle to keep his thoughts from sliding to the wholly inappropriate.

How she’d look, the sounds he’d make, how they would taste. How right it would feel to let them scent up his neck, his wrists, his thighs. He’d beg for marks, he’s sure of it, and  _ fuck _ , it’s the worst kind of torture.

Sleep comes, eventually.

=====

He wakes and he's in the wrong place.

He lurches to his left like he's being hauled by an invisible hand, and _he's not where he's supposed_ _to be _and can't remember why before he's gasping out, half-blind, pressed against something solid as a tremor runs down his body. Not quite pain but close enough. 

Longing.

He presses his face against the object in his way and finds its the solid width of a door.

Breathes in deep. 

Remembers.

He can almost catch the now familiar smell of them, sweet from the burn of their heats, and that’s almost enough. 

A sound through the door, from a distance, breathy and  _ loud _ , and he’s not awake enough to trick himself into thinking it’s anything but what it actually is.

His nails bite into the wood, into the palm of his hand, and the hours pass like they're dragging through mud and Trevor might be going insane.

It's too late for sleep and he’s too far gone to care about appearances, hot all through with the hints of scent he’s getting through the door, the muffled sounds that drift through.

He must make a noise, low, because he can feel it reverberate down his skin.

There’s a shuffle, eventually, heard faintly.

“Fuck,” he gasps, and then there’s a loud thump right on the outside of the door. Dead weight.

“Jesus,” he breathes, pleads, and the door shifts under his cheek as a weight is thrust against it. He hears breathing, panting, and a whisper through the door. “Trevor?”

Sypha. Relief is immediate-- a balm sliding over him, cool, and he takes a shuddering breath. 

“Belmont.” Alucard’s voice is rough, and Trevor is suddenly very aware of how heavy his limbs feel. He turns so that his back is pressed to the door again, head tipped back to rest against the wood, overcome, trying to catch the breath he didn’t realize was gone.

He’s catching their mingled scent through the gaps of the door, and it’s more familiar now, less burnt sugar and more them, deep and mossy and edged under with florally ozone. 

Perfect. Christ.

“Are you--uh.” And fuck, his throat feels and sounds like grated glass. He takes another shuddering breath, rubbing his throat. “Is it over?”

A low scrape is Trevor’s only warning as the old lock clicks and the door swings open, knocking him forward to his hands and knees. He mutters a swear as they make their way through the door.

“Did you fall asleep on the door?” Alucard says, voice tired but amused.

“I guess,” Trevor mumbles, tongue thick, rolling so that he’s no longer on his knees. Now that the obstacle between him and them is gone, the frantic, miserable edge of want that was his constant companion the past day mellows into a gentle lull of feeling. He pushes his tangled hair out of his eyes and looks up at them. 

They look as tired as he feels. Sypha is staring at him with concern, the usually neat wrappings of her robes hanging down around her, hair tangled to one side of her head. Alucard isn’t much better; Trevor can see the edge of a mark on his collar where the shirt hangs loose, buttoned incorrectly. He can feel his heartbeat loud in his ears again, a rush of heat.

He wants that.

He wants to throw himself at their feet and he wants to fix Alucard’s shirt and most of all he wants Sypha to give him a mark to match Alucard’s and god, he must be tired because he’s been drugged up on nonsense all night long. His eyes slip shut, and he sighs.

“Are you okay?” Sypha’s kneeling next to him in an instant, eyes wide. “You look like absolute shit.” She frowns. “Wait, did you sleep at all?”

“Not really,” he says, and lets himself drop back into the pile of his cloak and Alucard’s coat.

Sypha’s hand covers his knee, touch light, and he tugs in a sharp breath and stills immediately, instinctively. 

“Oh.” Trevor hears her say softly, and before he can react she settles carefully next to him, the gesture familiar, and after a moment Alucard drops down next to them on Sypha’s other side, arm wrapped around her. It’s not lost on Trevor that he’s positioned himself to let his hand fall on Trevor’s shoulder, fingertips a series of cool points of pressure. Silence and soft scent blankets them all, and the relief is so immediate it’s stunning. 

“How uh--” Trevor clears his throat in the silence. “How was it?”

“Fine,” Alucard says flatly, and okay, that’s fair.

“Thank you,” Sypha offers, quietly, and it hits somewhere beneath Trevor’s ribs.

“Don't mention it.”

And they don’t mention it, all throughout the next few days of research. There are moments though, where Trevor catches Sypha looking his way, brow furrowed and mouth quirked. Alucard pointedly does not look at him, but that too seems deliberate.

But then Sypha figures out the spell to lock Dracula’s castle in place, and Trevor’s heart never quite reaches resting pace, and it’s almost easy to let everything else falls away in the wake of their preparations. 


	3. Dusk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really intended to get this chapter out way, way sooner, but real life happened and I also ended up rewriting a large swathe of this to shape it into something I was happy with, but now it's almost triple the length so I guess it worked out. Also, threesomes are hard to write; there are so many hands???

=====

The final fight with Dracula almost kills them.

Alucard’s voice is flat when he reports what happened after the tide of the fight forced them apart, eyes fixed on a distant point between Trevor and Sypha’s shoulders as they stand side by side in the wreckage of the castle’s entrance hall. There’s a bruise forming on the side of his face and another on his arm where his shirt ripped away and his scent is driving Trevor to distraction even as he tries to focus on his words--_ hurt and hurting and exhausted and devastated _\-- and Trevor desperately wants to brush the tangled hair from his face. Knows Sypha must want to as well. 

The air vibrates and crackles around Alucard, and before either of them can do so much as blink his form shakes into his wolf. 

Sypha immediately calls his name and then swears under her breath as Alucard’s wolf brushes by her, thick fur dragging past her fingers-- an apology, Trevor can only assume, or something like it-- before he slinks out the door into the thick edge of the forest. 

Dawn peeks over the edge of the mountain range in the distance, light pooling on the worn stones of the castle, the soaked earth that surrounds it.

“He’ll come back when he’s ready,” Trevor says quietly, and Sypha turns to him. Looks at him for a long moment, eyes searching over his face, looking for something Trevor can’t begin to parse.

“There’s work to do,” she says finally, miserably, and Trevor is grateful that he’s brave enough at that moment to tug her into the circle of his arms like he's wanted to from the start.

It takes almost the full day after the fight to round up and drag the bodies of the fallen vampires to a clearing in the nearby forest to burn them. It’s almost certainly overkill and inarguably paranoid but the voice in the back of Trevor’s head that sounds uncomfortably close to his father’s won’t let him take any chances with vampires. To always, _ always _double and triple check and take all the proper precautions and then some, and he’s damn well not going to fuck up the defeat of the largest vampire army in memory with a little bit of laziness on his part. Not when all seemed to have gone right, for once.

More or less.

Alucard is still absent as night falls and Trevor salts the clearing and corpses liberally. Sypha lights the whole thing aflame as the sun sets over the hills. 

“Well that’s done,” she says as they stand and watch the blaze, and Trevor nods.

Takes it all in. The adrenaline heat in his veins is fading, finally, _ finally _, and his limbs and eyelids feel leaden in the cool night air.

Alucard is sitting on the steps of the castle when they return, staring blankly at where the sun dipped beyond the horizon.

His eyes are red and he looks more impossibly pale than usual, and Trevor looks at Sypha and Sypha doesn’t ask.

“Let me wrap your arm, Sypha,” Alucard says finally, looking between them like he’s daring them to say something. “Then we can sleep.”

Sypha takes his hands in both of her own-- one at a time, impossibly gentle-- and nods before wrapping him in a hug.

Trevor wants to hold them so badly it chokes him-- he feels it in the back of his throat, tight. Instead, he swallows painfully and upends their packs to get to all their blankets, working with the type of single minded purpose borne from bone deep exhaustion. Gathers a few more from dusty rooms that haven’t seen use in ages while Alucard wraps Sypha’s shoulder with fixed determination, blood dried dark on his clothes, dark circles under his eyes. 

Trevor doesn’t dare suggest they use the living quarters, and Alucard doesn’t offer. They’d make do.

He drags the heavy feather blankets to the cool stone of the entrance hall and scatters pillows. His eyes threaten to sink closed with every step.

“There are blankets,” he manages to mumble, tongue thick in his mouth, and Sypha looks up at him. “For whenever.” There’s dirt on her face, ash from before, and Trevor wants to wipe it away. 

Alucard doesn’t look up, but Trevor can see him nod.

“Feel free to, uh, yeah--” Trevor gestures limply. “I think I’m going to pass out now.”

And he kicks off his boots and collapses into the thick of the blankets, too tired for anything resembling grace. 

He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.

=====

He wakes up sluggishly to a heavy weight on his chest and tenses, sucking in a startled breath before the mass shifts and nudges further into his neck. Heartbeats against his chest and against his side, slow, steady. The warmth of breath on his arm, and another across his collarbones. 

_ Okay, okay, okay. _

And then it settles over him like a fog, like a shield, and he’s tugged under again in a few breaths. Content.

=====

Trevor startles awake to a loud, unfamiliar shout. He stumbles to his feet, groggy, just in time to see the doors of the castle slam open, letting a wave of people pour into the entranceway. 

Townspeople. _ Fuck _. Of course the nearby town would have noticed a gigantic fucking castle plant itself in the middle of the woods. 

It takes the better part of the morning to stumble through an explanation of who they are, the travelling castle, the opened Belmont keep, everything that had unfolded. The final battle. The fall of Dracula. 

The newly-made join of Dracula’s castle and the Belmont keep is hardly structurally sound and the town is half in cobble from months of demon attacks, so in the end it's really not hard for the three of them to decide to stick around and help.

There’s a lot to clean up. There’s a lot to build. There’s a lot to _ do, _all at once. Alucard gets conscripted by the town’s healers and spends most of his time splinting bones and wrapping wounds in the makeshift hospital in the main town hall. Sypha demonstrates her knack for moving earth and water and is immediately enlisted to help with the repair of fortifications and large structures.

Trevor spends most days with a hammer and chisel in hand, stabilizing buildings and lending a hand wherever he gets tugged. He learns how to salvage a damaged field, how to thatch a roof, how to soothe a crying child, how to hunt enough game and bake enough bread to feed an exhausted and hungry town. 

Before the fall of his house he’d never been good at this part of his family’s work. It had never been a priority, never been a requirement of the job; there had been more than enough Belmonts to shoulder the load of leadership after the passing of immediate threat. He’d never been cut out for lordship, and had always been better at tangling with the monster than tackling the long work of rebuilding afterwards, but now he finds that it’s...settling. A feeling like fitting a dagger in its sheath, a neat sense of rightness. Like every action has a purpose, soothing a restless thing deep inside himself, long buried, and god, it’s really, really nice to be useful.

Well. Among other things.

He wishes he could pretend his reasons were entirely selfless. Wishes he could ignore the fact that his drive to _ help _ and _ build _ and _ do _is largely due to the fact that the work keeps him too busy or too exhausted to think about Alucard and Sypha, and the new, unfamiliar shape they’ve been etching out around each other. 

_ Selfish _, the voice in his head hisses, and he can’t really argue. All his best reasons are selfish.

He knows they’re sleeping in the castle at night because he can smell them there, and he plans his days so that he sneaks out before they wake and comes back after the door to the room they’ve chosen is shut fast. 

They were gathered together like threads in a bolt of cloth from the beginning. Woven together by companionship, by friendship, by time, and the unfortunate ache of the alpha in Trevor’s bones. Everything shifted when they woke the morning after Dracula’s defeat; a new pattern to their interactions, a different feeling in the way Alucard and Sypha catch his eye when they cross paths, and Trevor’s not sure where he stands anymore. They triumphed-- and _ high holy hell _ thank god they did-- but the aftermath is tangled and far messier than the getting there and for the life of him he can’t figure out _ why _. 

He constructed his plan out of sound reason all that time ago to keep them focused on their goal-- constructed it to achieve an end and bound himself up in it on purpose and he’s not sure why he can’t seem to let himself out now that the reasons are removed. Dracula is dead and Wallachia is saved and Alucard and Sypha are right there, smelling like something close to holy and lovely as ever, and all Trevor can do is _ hide _from them. 

And they let him, and they continue to let him, and that must mean _ something _.

He notices one day that he’s missing his second favorite blanket and in its place is Alucard’s once-nice-but-now-very-travel-worn shirt and one of Sypha’s cloaks, the one with an unravelled edge where he knows she singed it in a fight. A mistake, surely, or something more calculated, and Trevor doesn't know the difference anymore.

There’s a patient tick of ache in Trevor’s bones when he slips and thinks about them, that vestige of alpha blood seeking its match in the omega in theirs and he wants their friendship and he wants their marks on him and he wants neither of those, and both.

In short, he's a mess.

Drinking doesn’t help. He tries, on the third night-- melts the seal on a bottle from the stash he finds deep in a corner of the castle cellar-- Alucard's mother’s stash, he can only assume, based on the dietary preferences of the castle's other long-term inhabitants, and really, who is he to judge.

He drinks, and before he knows it he’s half a bottle down into something that’s fruity on his tongue and when he blinks at the empty kitchen, it takes a second or two for him to focus again. A thick, buzzy veil. And he still wants them.

And then he’s a whole bottle down and well into a third of the same and he's slipped sideways into a hazy dream of blurred motion and he _ wants them _, wants to search them out and fall at their feet and tell them everything, anything at all just so it will live somewhere other than where it’s burning a hole inside him. It ends up far, far worse than when he was able to think clearly because now he can’t even muster up a serviceable distraction-- settles for rattling around the kitchen until he wakes up, head pounding, slumped on the floor.

They’ve lodged in him like a knife to the gut, and he wants and he _ wants _ and he knows he should talk to them, knows he should tip his hand or just throw all his cards on the table, knows he should stop being a coward and just _ tell them _, but there’s a small tripping patter of thoughts that loop through his mind on repeat--

_ They don’t want you. You were just convenient-- a convenient traveling companion, a convenient fighter, a convenient alpha-- and you’ve far outstayed your welcome. How dare you possibly think they would want _you. 

So he does what always comes easiest. 

He leaves.

=====

Trevor wakes up in the chilly, hushed dark of morning and stops by the kitchen to leave a note tucked under the jug of water on the table. 

_ Going hunting. Back soon. --T. _

No timeline and no destination. It’s for the best.

Maybe he should grab something for the road. Bread. Jerky. Booze. Anything. The pantry is stocked with bags and boxes of mostly empty grain, and he pushes them aside searching for the full bottle of wine he knows he remembers seeing the day before. He should probably grab a waterskin too, but wine makes for better company than water and therefore has priority.

“You're leaving.”

He turns, startled. Sypha is standing near the table, hair framing her face in messy curls. Her blue robe is hanging unbelted, like she threw it over her dark underclothes as an afterthought. 

His note is folded open in her hand.

There’s a hard lump in Trevor’s throat. “No,” he lies, aiming for casual. “I’m hunting.”

She raises an eyebrow, steps towards him. “Really?”

He shoots her a winning smile. “Really.” He grabs a bottle at random and pushes by Sypha on his way out of the pantry.

Sypha crosses her arms. “You’re bringing cooking oil? For hunting?”

“...Yeah,” Trevor says. _ Shit _. “...It’s good for, uh, conditioning the leather. Of my whip. You know, for maintenance.”

She raises a careful eyebrow and watches as he struggles to close the clasp on the pack, fingers clumsy. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Oh yeah? When did you become such an expert on weapon maintenance? You fight with _ water _.”

“Watching _ you _,” she replies easily, and swings herself up on the table, still clutching the note. 

Trevor scoffs and turns to open the cabinets that line the walls, searching for a waterskin. He can feel her watching him, the itch of her eyes on his back.

“You think so loudly, Trevor.”

“Do I?” 

“When you bother to think at all, it's always loud. Your shoulders go all tight and your eyes crinkle up right here.” He turns and catches her touching the corner of her eye. 

He rolls his eyes and just stops the corner of his mouth from twisting into a smile. “The town needs to bulk up their meat reserves so I’m hunting. People need to eat, Sypha.”

“Uh-huh,” she says pleasantly.

“It’s a well-known fact, Sypha.”

“Uh-huh,” she repeats. “I’m curious, Belmont--”

Trevor huffs out a breath and finally spots a waterskin on a top shelf, stretches up to reach it. “That’s always dangerous.”

“--Are you going because you don’t want to be with us or because you do?” Her voice is level, and all of the air leaves Trevor’s throat. 

“Christ, speaker.” He fumbles the waterskin and it tumbles to the ground with a soft thud. 

“I can't figure out if you do.” Trevor turns, back pressed to the hard line of the counter, and Sypha sits up straighter, leans towards him from her perch on the table. Her scent is warm, warm, comforting, but the anxious thrill tingling under his skin stops him from getting any sense of relief from it. 

He really should have seen this coming. Should have been better at leaving.

“I’m patient but I’m also used to speaking these things plainly. Alucard and I--”

“--Are together,” he cuts in, because he can’t not.

She sighs, and continues.” Yes, we are, but-- listen, Belmont, on the road we all slept tangled up more nights than not, and you wear Alucard’s clothes and steal my blankets and we’re trying to--”

“Speaker--”

“We could smell you through the door, you know.”

Trevor freezes. 

“--When our heats hit. We thought you were going to stay-- You smelled like you _ wanted _ to stay, and then you left and that’s fine, really, but when we found you after...you looked like you were in _ pain _ , Trevor. I don’t mean to force the issue, but you keep slipping off and we can’t find you and I-- I’m gathering information. I need to know what you want. I _ want _to know.” She smiles softly. “Sometimes you look at me like--”

And Trevor has heard enough. Let this grow up too far and too thick around the three of them, a thatched trap-- let it get close enough to hurt. “Listen, speaker, I'm the furthest thing from what you want. What either of you want.” It hurts to say, caught up in his throat like a burr.

“But you do want _ us _?”

Trevor sighs heavily. “That’s not the point. I’m not what anyone wants.”

“What anyone wants? We just want _ you _, if you’d have us.”

“You want an _ alpha _,” he hisses, voice all of a sudden too loud, eyes too hot.

Sypha’s eyes widen. “What?”

“It's all just biology, right?” Trevor’s nails prick his palms. “You’re an omega, I'm an alpha, I’m meant to fill out the-- the _ gap _ in your relationship, whether you want it or not. You and Alucard-- you’re good together, you _ work _ , but that little biological ticker in your brains says something’s missing, something’s _ wrong _ , you need an alpha to really make it all _ good _ .” His sneer sits wrong on his skin, sick. “Well, you don’t need an alpha, and you especially don’t need _ me _.”

“What? Trevor-- why?”

Trevor barks out a laugh. “Do I really need to list out every reason why you don’t need a drunken, bitter, _ broken _alpha tagging along with you? Dracula’s dead now, I’ve done my part-- your prophecy can be laid to fucking rest and we can all get back to our lives.” His eyes prick, throat tight. “You and Alucard can shack up in the castle and research until your eyes give out and I can get back to the road.”

Sypha’s expression flicks between confusion and frustration before she throws up her hands, dropping down from the table and stalking towards him, scent hot in Trevor’s nose. “Let me get this straight. You think we only want you because you’re an alpha? That biology is _ tricking us _ ? That we don’t know what we want? What _ I _ want? Trevor--” She swears under her breath. “Of all the idiotic, entitled, _ inane--” _

“I’m leaving. I should have left _ ages _ago,” he bites, and he’s horrified when the end of it comes out as a growl. He snatches his bag from where he dropped it on the ground. Fuck the rest of the supplies; he’d make do.

“I would strongly advise you shut up before you say something you’ll regret, Trevor Belmont.” Alucard is standing in the doorway of the kitchen holding a bundle of fabric, jaw set. 

Of course. Because that’s just his luck.

“Fucking wonderful,” Trevor snaps. He grips the strap of his bag like a lifeline, anxiety clawing up his spine. “Care to join? You’re a bit late to the party, as per usual, but I guess better late than never, right?”

“How much have you heard?” Sypha asks him.

“Enough. Even if I didn’t have good hearing you’re both loud.” Alucard steps in the kitchen and holds out the bundle out to Trevor. “When I heard the substance of the argument I took the liberty of collecting your clothes, since you’re leaving.”

“I’m _ hunting _,” Trevor repeats, like it’s anywhere close to the truth.

Sypha scoffs.

“Is it because there’s two of us?” Alucard interjects curiously, coolly, like Trevor isn’t fuming, like Sypha isn’t glaring hard enough to cut glass. “I understand it’s not the norm, but--”

“God no,” Trevor laughs, humorless. “I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it’s not _ you _ , it’s _ me _.”

“You are an idiot, Trevor.” Sypha says it sharply, and her scent is like smoke in his nose; flecks of embers. “Do not presume to know what I want. I want Alucard. And I want you--” 

He inhales sharply, about to protest, but she cuts him off. “Yes, _ you _\-- Trevor Belmont, last of the Belmonts, utter asshole and the most oblivious alpha on the continent. I couldn’t care less if you’re an alpha or an omega or anything in between. It’s not complicated; I told you that already.”

And oh, she had, even if he’d dismissed it. Forehead against his throat, curled under his shoulder. 

“I think we could be good together. I think we should at least _ try _.” She looks to Alucard suddenly, the tilt of her head unsure. “Not to speak for you. I just--”

“--I want you too.” Alucard says all at once, and he immediately flushes all down his neck and looks away from both of them when he does, and if circumstances were drastically, _ wildly _different Trevor would have laughed. 

“We’ve been courting you for ages now.” Alucard’s voice is quiet. He’s looking at Trevor now, flush high on his cheeks. “Clothes, blankets, food--” He frowns. “I don’t just give my clothes away to anyone, you know.”

Trevor-- stops. Considers. Courting meant flowers, jewelry, chaperoned walks in the garden and chaste kisses on the hand before parting. Not watching Alucard phase through air to rip apart a demon that’s about to gut Trevor and feeling warm. Not Sypha offering him the ends of the tea she brewed and laughing when he spills it on her robes. Not falling asleep in a tangle, soft blankets and softer hair across his arms, and not waking up cloaked in omega pheromones so thick it makes him dizzy. Definitely not catching Alucard and Sypha’s scent after being apart and smelling himself on them, layered up and _ perfect _.

Nothing they did was anything close to the public ritual of courting he was familiar with from stories, from his childhood. Was that what it was like when it wasn’t a performance?

He had no idea.

“We thought you noticed,” Sypha says.

“I thought you were-- god--” He runs a hand through his hair. “Being nice?”

“My god,” Alucard exclaims, horrified.

“I don’t know how to do this,” Trevor says, because he might as well admit it. “I’ve never-- I don't have the practice to be good at this.” He lets out a laugh and finds it’s not as bitter as before. The knot inside him is unspooling, just a little. A fray in the held tension. “Clearly.”

“Bullshit,” Alucard says flatly. “That’s idiotic even for you. It’s not a matter of practice or being _ good _at anything; it’s about us, and it’s about you, and it’s about us three, together. So--” Alucard’s voice is quieter than Sypha’s, but his eyes are locked onto Trevor; gold ringed black. “Do you want to try?”

They look so beautiful, there in front of him. He shuts his eyes, breathes them in. Earth, spice, air, sweet. Lets his hands uncurl at his sides. God save him.

“Yes.” It comes out quietly because saying it any louder would shatter the words before they leave his throat. 

Sypha lets out a long, slow breath, and the corner of Alucard’s mouth quirks up. “Good,” he says, and tilts his head at Trevor. 

“Good,” Trevor repeats, half to himself. Their scent is in his throat again, but this time it fails to snatch the breath from his lungs, to drown him, to fill him up so much he chokes on nothing but them, them, them. This time he doesn’t get lost in it.

This time, it’s a part of him.

He lets his pack drop to the ground, lets the words tumble out. “If I don’t touch you both right now I think I’ll completely lose it.”

“Oh thank god,” Sypha says, closing the few feet between them till she’s there, pressed close enough to slip her arm around Trevor’s back with Alucard right behind her, wrapping a tight arm around them both. Sypha tucks her head against Trevor’s chest and Alucard slides close to let his head rest against Trevor’s-- companionable, _ warm _, and the knot in Trevor’s chest eases as both their hands find their fit in each of Trevor’s like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

The sun rises, the tides roll out, and Alucard and Sypha hold him like he’s meant to be there.

Trevor isn’t sure how long they stand like that but when they shift apart he opens his eyes and there’s light filtering through the high slits of windows in the kitchen. 

Sypha’s smiling, and she squeezes his hand as Alucard tightens his grip on the other. The pale orange of dawn stripes across Sypha’s blue eyes and hits the gold of Alucard’s hair and god, they’re the best thing he’s ever seen. 

Sypha tugs softly at his collar, looking up at him. “I’m still angry with you for avoiding us.”

“That’s fair,” Trevor says. “I’m sorry.”

She runs her hands up Trevor’s arms and over his shoulders until the pads of her thumbs rest in the soft hollows of his throat, fingers curling softly under his jaw. “I know what I want and it’s you.” 

“I want you too,” he says, glancing between the two of them. His pulse is beating hard in his ears, and he feels light, and he feels uncoiled, and there’s a low buzz under his skin, urging action. “I want you both.”

He’s not sure who moves first; it doesn’t really matter in the end. Sypha’s curls up into him and he leans down and she kisses him. A simple thing. Warm lips, light touch. Kisses him again when he makes a noise against her lips, harder this time, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he melts from the points where she’s touching him outwards. She smells good as hell, scent so heady up close, and she kisses like she fights; unapologetic, uncompromising. She bites at his lip and he gasps; clutches the sharp line of her hips, the edge of her ribs, cloth bunching under his fingers. 

He can see her lace her hand in one of Alucard’s to tug him closer, hears Alucard let out a little laugh, shifting. Alucard’s hand is on his shoulder, running down his arm, dipping around to his shoulder blade to insinuate himself around them both, face tucked against Trevor’s hair, and Trevor sighs into Sypha’s lips and gasps when she bite down again. 

He breaks the kiss on a soft, shaky exhale. “Christ.” 

Sypha’s hand is cool against his jaw and she smiles at him, eyes dark, pupils blown. He leans down and kisses her again because he desperately wants to and because he can, now. A marvel.

Alucard is watching them with an expression Trevor isn’t familiar with. There’s something complicated going on in his eyes. “Belmont--” he starts, and then: “--Trevor, I--”

Trevor grasps his collar and kisses him before he can try another name, before he can say anything else at all and before Trevor goes crazy from not kissing him.

Alucard’s hand catches in Trevor’s hair and his mouth is warm, insistent. Trevor hears the light tinkle of Sypha’s delighted giggle through the haze in his head, in his limbs all the way down to the tips of his fingers. He slides a hand under Alucard’s coat and Alucard makes a soft, wonderful sound into his mouth and that’s encouragement enough for Trevor. He kisses him urgently, messily, bottom lip accidentally catching on a fang, welling up with copper; he gasps and Alucard swallows it. 

“Alright?” Alucard says against his lips.

“_ Yes _,” Trevor breathes, voice hitching, and he can feel Alucard smile as he lets Trevor wind a clumsy hand into the thick of his hair, lets him use the other to tug away the collar of his shirt, lets Trevor tug his head to the side to bare flushed skin, enough room for Trevor to drop his head down to drink in Alucard’s scent where it gathers sweet above the curve of his collarbone. His teeth scrape across the small beat of Alucard’s pulse-- just an edge of the feeling that’s building in Trevor’s blood, in his bones, in his spinning head-- and Alucard makes another one of those soft sounds.

It’s too much. It’s not enough.

Trevor pulls away. “Jesus.” He lets out a little laugh, shakes his head, smiles. “That was, uh-- nice.” A vast understatement; there’s a current tingling under his skin like it does before a brawl, before a fight; anticipation lighting him up, and he’s humming with it.

Alucard smirks. “I’m certain we can make it a lot nicer.”

Sypha elbows him and he laughs, smiling radiantly. “You stole my line,” she says, and she kisses Trevor again, a firm pressing of their lips together that slides hastily into something more heated. He slips his hands down her sides and hefts her onto the kitchen table, burying his face in the crook of her neck when she lets out a surprised laugh. He breathes her in, scent layered up with Alucard’s, with his own. 

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “We should really go somewhere more conducive to this sort of activity--” But she’s leaning back just enough to unbutton Trevor’s shirt, now-- guiding his hand up under her robe, slipping under the fabric stretched tight over her chest, and, _ oh _. 

“I'm good here,” Trevor says, and cups her breast and shifts his hand and can’t help but smile when she shudders, eyelids flickering. “Yep, more than good here.”

“Not fair, Trevor,” she laughs.

“Beds are highly overrated.” Trevor turns just in time to see Alucard tug his shirt over his head.

“Oh right, says the one who slept in a coffin for a whole year--”

Alucard presses up against his back, arm hooked around his stomach. “You do realize that's not helping your argument, Belmont--”

“_ Hush _ , both of you.” Sypha hops off the table and shrugs out of her robe, letting it drop. “If you want to stop me from running off and finding a bed all on my own I'd advise you to _ do _something.”

Simple enough.

They tangle together, touch finding purchase on Trevor’s arms, his ribs, his throat-- shedding layers until Trevor is fit between them, skin to burning skin, and god, that’s a sight. That’s a feeling.

He ends up with his back flush to the floor and with hands on his thighs, on his wrists, a knee pressed up between his legs and a nose in his neck and he’s half out of his mind with it all. He’s distantly aware that this is probably supposed to be the other way around, that he should be the one pushing and demanding and _ taking _, but that sits wrong and this, goddamn-- feels good. 

Sypha presses the flat of her hand right where he wants it most, just enough friction, the look on her face the furthest thing from a blushing ingenue-- and he tips his head back, pushes up into it, bucks his hips and gasps when Alucard’s hand clamps down on his hip, holding him still. Trevor moans, hums with the current, with the buzz of his blood. 

Sypha tugs Alucard down for a kiss above him, unfinessed, scent rolling thick off of them. It curls up into Trevor like rising smoke, warm all the way down. He hears himself growl, possessive and low as it rumbles in his throat. 

_ Christ _.

When they pull away from one another they’re panting, flushed and beautiful. Trevor surges upright and pulls them to him, tangled close as they can get, want making him clumsy, demanding. He needs more-- more skin, more heat, just _ more _.

His hands shake, and he’s _ hungry _.

“Please,” he breathes, and he’s not exactly sure what he’s asking for. He wants anything, everything.

Alucard lays a careful hand on his chest; pushes down until he’s straddling Trevor, breath mixing with Trevor’s. “Is this what you wanted, Trevor?” 

“Yeah.”

“Is this all you wanted?”

“No,” he pants, and Alucard’s sharp nails dig into his chest.

Sypha smiles, eyes gone dark, and tugs her hand through his hair, almost petting him, fingers catching on the knots. “What else did you want?”

“Anything,” he pants, open mouthed. “I want everything about you. I want you to be mine. I want to be _ yours _.”

“Hush, alpha,” Alucard says, and Trevor goes still as he noses up his throat, scenting him, and Trevor’s hands curl tight around the jut of his hips; when he tries to roll his head back it tugs against Sypha’s grip on his hair, a little sunburst of pain, and oh-- that’s nice. 

Alucard could bite him like this, as he’s held in place by Sypha-- a gesture more than anything else, a mark that would linger for a few days beside the rest of his scars. Emotion made physical; proof printed clear on his skin. 

“Please,” he says, and Alucard kisses the side of his neck, right over his pulse. “I want you to.”

Alucard makes a small sound at that, pulling away all at once, and Trevor tries not to gasp at the absence. Fails.

“I don’t bite.” There’s a complicated shift behind Alucard’s eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want to, I just can’t be guaranteed to...stop, and--”

Heat flares through Trevor-- an odd twist of his stomach that he can’t unpack now. “I get it, I don’t need you to explain...”

Alucard cradles his jaw, tilts his chin up until their eyes meet. “But I’d like for you to. To match.” He tilts his head, and Trevor sees the faded curve of Sypha’s teeth on his skin.

“Oh, god,” Trevor says. “Yes. _ Yes _, I’d like-- that.” He meets Sypha eyes, blue through the veil of her hair. “Sypha, can I--”

The corner of her mouth quirks up, and she nudges Alucard aside to steal his place on top of Trevor, pressing a soft kiss to Trevor’s mouth. “I’d take offense if you didn’t, Trevor.”

Trevor watches, transfixed, as Alucard sweeps the mess of her hair out of her face from beside them, bunching it up at the top of her spine and kissing her there, pressed to her back, watching Trevor with his golden predator’s eyes. 

Sypha smiles wickedly. “And, Alucard might not bite, but I certainly do.” Another soft kiss is pressed to his lips, and Trevor’s eyes flutter with it. “If you would be interested.”

“Please, god--” Trevor repeats, gasps, dangerously close to a litany, and he wishes he could elaborate, come up with anything more coherent. 

Sypha kisses the side of his mouth, gentle, and Trevor’s next breath comes out shaky.

“Did you think about this, all the way at the top of the stairs in the archives? Did you think about us like this? Because I did.” Sypha's smile turns sharp like an edged blade, like her nails in Trevor’s bicep. “Alucard did. And now--” Sypha’s breath is hot over Trevor’s lips, his jaw, his neck, and oh. _ Oh _. “--Now we’ve got you.” 

And they do, they do. 

Sharp pressure, for a moment, and then a rush of heat. Stars explode in his eyes, and each breath is ragged. Caught in the riptide, pulled under. He must make a noise because he can feel it through Sypha’s hold on him. Hands clasp his; firm pressure. 

Key in lock. Held tight in the balance.

A mark, and he never knew it was supposed to feel _ good _. That it would root in him and ache like belonging. 

He opens for them like a tapped cask.

And Alucard chuckles as he catches Trevor’s open lips in a kiss, as Sypha wipes the red from her lips with the back of her hand and smiles at them like the sun. 

It’s easy to follow instinct after that.

=====

The dark imprint of Trevor’s teeth is set into the smooth expanse of Alucard’s thigh and he can’t stop staring at it.

There’s a beam of sunshine coming through the high windows and it’s catching the mark perfectly, a neat frame, and his own neck aches and Trevor knows that he has marks to match. That Sypha has marks to match too. _ God _. Heat sweeps lazily up his spine, tingling and warm but lacking the pull of urgency from before. 

When they--

Well.

Alucard’s fingers are curled over the back of Trevor’s neck, nails scratching pleasantly through his hair, and Sypha has fit herself in the slip of space between them, hair flopped into her face and eyes flickering shut as she breathes deeply.

It’s too far hot with the sun streaming into the kitchen and the floor is increasingly uncomfortable where they ended up clustered half on top of each other, but Trevor finds he doesn’t mind. Finds that he doesn’t mind _ at all _, actually.

He drags the damp hair out of his face and breathes in, deeply.

The air is thick with the scent of them, with _ sex _ ; wildflowers and earth and musk and _ heat _and it’s absolutely devastating. A nebulous sort of perfection, cobbled together, but Trevor could die happy just breathing it in. There’s a pleasant little tug in each beat of his heart, a little thrill with every breath, and he feels wild with it all. 

“This is incredibly uncomfortable,” Sypha states into the silence. “Your elbow is especially sharp today, Alucard.”

Alucard hums. “It comes with the teeth, Sypha. You should be used to it by now.” 

She raises a careful eyebrow.

“Fine,” Alucard says, and moves to sprawl more effectively on Trevor. Trevor learns that he is, indeed, incredibly bony.

“Trevor makes for a far better pillow anyway.” Alucard drawls. “More padding.”

“Sure,” Trevor says easily, and presses his knuckles lazily into the mark on Alucard’s thigh; Alucard shivers, a move that would be imperceptible had he not been touching Trevor, and glares fit to cut.

Trevor smirks. 

Alucard just digs his elbow into Trevor’s side and reaches back to thread his hands in Trevor’s hair again, and Trevor leans into it automatically.

“Are you petting me?” Trevor asks, suddenly suspicious.

Alucard smirks. “Took you long enough.”

“Please let me enjoy at least one minute of post-coital bliss before the bickering starts,” Sypha warns, and Alucard leans over to kiss her, hair falling across their faces, and Trevor’s heart somersaults.

“So,” he says, aiming for casual. His voice threatens to shake, and he forces it firm. “Are we doing this?”

“I think we already did,” Alucard says, and Trevor snorts despite himself. “And I can’t help but be eager to do it again.”

Sypha tugs on Alucard’s hair affectionately and kisses Trevor hard. “Yes, Trevor, we are doing this.”

“Yes, we are,” Alucard echos, the corner of his mouth curving into a smile.

Trevor laces their hands together again, because he wants to and-- most importantly-- because he can. Alucard tightens his grip immediately, firmly, and Sypha presses a gentle kiss to the back of Trevor’s hand. There’s a lot to talk about, he knows, but right now he’s warm and content and _ happy _ , and it’s a start. It’s a _ good _start.

Sypha raises herself up on her arms so that she’s looking right at them both, achingly fond. “It’s nearly spring,” she says. “It’s a good time to let something grow.”

And so they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read, comment, and leave kudos on my fic! This started out as a personal challenge to write a trope that is not usually my cup of tea in a way that I enjoy and it got incredibly, ridiculously out of hand. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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